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In recent years we have seen images of Supermasive black holes, Stars outside the Milky Way and planetary systems that orbit other solesthe famous exoplanets. Current astronomy allows us to see with a precision until recently unimaginable the environment that surrounds other stars, to the point that we now have 74 images – not exoplanets, but of exocomena.
The news. An international astronomer team has published the most detailed images until the date of 74 different exocometa belts: Dust structures and countless icy bodies that orbit other star systems, in the same way as Kuiper’s belt surrounds our solar system.
The images They are part of the Reasons surveywhich combines data from the powerful telescopes Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (soul) in Chile and Submillimeter Array (SMA) in Hawaii.
The context. The exocometer are frozen bodies of at least one kilometer in diameter. Although they are too small to be observed directly from the earth, the collisions between them release dust and small fragments that form extensive rubble belts, exocometaries belts.
It is not a new concept. Astronomers first intuited the presence of exocomets around the Beta Pictoris star in 1984, long before the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1995. Specifically, they detected the spectral firms of evaporated ice passing in front of the star.
The details. Reasons images reveal a whole diversity of structures. Some form narrow rings, like our Kuiper belt. Others have multiple rings or are more elongated, suggesting that they have been molded by the severity of unknown exoplanets.
The discs have ages ranging from 20 million to 2,000 million years, which covers from systems in the protoplanetary phase to mature systems. The astrophysicist Carlos del Burgo, from the University of La Laguna, highlights that this is “the biggest sample to date.”
An opportunity to study them. Located in the outer regions of its systems (more than 10 astronomical units), these rings are at extremely low temperatures (between -250 ° C and -150 ° C), which allows volatile compounds such as water to remain frozen .
The researcher Isabel Rebellido, of the European Space Astronomy Center, points out “the importance of being able to perform statistical analysis of these discs for the first time.” Especially its evolution. With the passage of time, the discs seem to lose mass and surface area. And those closest to their stars dissipate more quickly due to the impact of star radiation.
Image | Alma (ESO / NaOJ / NRAO) / SMA / L. Matrà et al.
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